With global warming it is often heads you lose, tails we win. No matter what happens in the weather the answer is always global warming. Is it getting warmer? The answer is global warming. Is it getting colder? The answer is still global warming.
If you think I'm kidding then check out this AOL headline: Global warming likely to cause colder and snowier winters, scientists say. Author Ryan Gorman strains to explain this line of reasoning:
Scientists now believe that global warming is to blame for extreme cold snaps in North America during the winter months – and that it will only keep happening.
The "polar vortex" that plunged Canada and the U.S. into historical cold last winter is said by researchers to have occurred because melting polar ice changes weather patterns, according to a study published earlier this month.
A team of Korean and American scientists asserted in a new study that the melting ice causes the northern jet stream (upper level air flow) to shift south and bring polar air with it.
The polar ice is melting because warmer water is riding the Gulf Stream (ocean currents) from tropical regions of the Atlantic Ocean to an area north of Scandinavia.
...As the atmosphere continues to warm, and ocean water temperatures rise, this effect will only become more pronounced, researchers argue.
The surprising result of global warming, or climate change, will be colder, snowier winters across both countries.
The Eurasian supercontinent also experiences this cooling effect, according to study co-author Seong-Joon Kim.
Uh-huh. The only problem with this explanation is that the Arctic ice has dramatically increased over the past two years as you can read in this Daily Mail article published on September 2:
The most widely used measurements of Arctic ice extent are the daily satellite readings issued by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, which is co-funded by Nasa. These reveal that – while the long-term trend still shows a decline – last Monday, August 25, the area of the Arctic Ocean with at least 15 per cent ice cover was 5.62 million square kilometres.
This was the highest level recorded on that date since 2006 (see graph, right), and represents an increase of 1.71 million square kilometres over the past two years – an impressive 43 per cent.
Other figures from the Danish Meteorological Institute suggest that the growth has been even more dramatic. Using a different measure, the area with at least 30 per cent ice cover, these reveal a 63 per cent rise – from 2.7 million to 4.4 million square kilometres.
...Crucially, the ice is also thicker, and therefore more resilient to future melting. Professor Andrew Shepherd, of Leeds University and University Coillege, London, an expert in climate satellite monitoring, said yesterday: ‘It is clear from the measurements we have collected that the Arctic sea ice has experienced a significant recovery in thickness over the past year.
‘It seems that an unusually cool summer in 2013 allowed more ice to survive through to last winter. This means that the Arctic sea ice pack is thicker and stronger than usual, and this should be taken into account when making predictions of its future extent.’
Yet for years, many have been claiming that the Arctic is in an ‘irrevocable death spiral’, with imminent ice-free summers bound to trigger further disasters. These include gigantic releases of methane into the atmosphere from frozen Arctic deposits, and accelerated global warming caused by the fact that heat from the sun will no longer be reflected back by the ice into space.
Judith Curry, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, said last night: ‘The Arctic sea ice spiral of death seems to have reversed.’
Those who just a few years ago were warning of ice-free summers by 2014 included US Secretary of State John Kerry, who made the same bogus prediction in 2009, while Mr Gore has repeated it numerous times – notably in a speech to world leaders at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, in an effort to persuade them to agree a new emissions treaty.
The Daily Mail graphic below demonstrates the dramatic increase in Arctic Sea ice over the past two years.
Exit question: Is there a parallel universe in which Al Gore is blaming warmer summers on global cooling?
